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What Does $1.8 Billion Get You in Men’s Wear?

The Jos. A. Bank store on Madison Avenue between 45th and 46th Streets, a haven for the tradition-minded.Credit...Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

A MAN IN NEED OF A SUIT AND TIE has an ample resource just west of Grand Central Terminal. There along Madison Avenue, a men’s wear corridor has taken shape over the years. It is less sexy than stretches of Madison farther north, where Prada squares off against Gucci; more fit for a salaryman than a roué. Down in the East ’40s, a more orderly air pervades. The options are many for the traditionally minded gent. Paul Stuart and the Brooks Brothers are the grand old men.

Relations between the neighbor-competitors tend to settle into comfortable détentes, but the block of Madison between 45th and 46th Streets offers an exception.

On the southwestern corner is Men’s Wearhouse; on the northwestern, Jos. A. Bank. For the last several months, the two have been embroiled in a protracted battle (“long, drawn out, dragged, rock ’em, sock ’em,” in the words of Marshal Cohen, the chief industry analyst of NPD Group) for control of each other. Last week, the larger, Men’s Wearhouse, announced it would acquire the smaller, Jos. A. Bank, for $65 a share, or $1.8 billion. The deal follows an aggressive acquisition attempt by Jos. A. Bank, which in October offered its rival $48 a share, or about $2.3 billion. Mr. Cohen called it one of the most discussed takeovers in retail memory.

“What’s making it so talkative is the on-again, off-again,” he said. “ ‘I’m buying you.’ ‘No, I’m buying you!’ ”

With this acquisition, the tectonic plates of men’s retail have shifted — the combined Men’s Wearhouse/Jos. A. Bank will trail only Macy’s, Kohl’s and J. C. Penney for volume in men’s wear, according to WWD — but for rock ’em, sock ’em, the drama lacks the theatrics of high fashion. “We expect the transaction will be accretive to Men’s Wearhouse’s earnings in the first full year,” said Doug Ewert, its president and chief executive, in a statement. This is as close to chest-thumping as the deal has officially produced.

Still, a fashion reporter bestriding Madison Avenue had cause to wonder what $1.8 billion buys you in men’s retail these days.

The Jos. A. Bank store on 46th Street, one of the 629 the company operates nationwide, is an institution. Its nameplate boasts that it was “established 1905.” It is slow to come around to trends. Its street-facing windows trumpet the arrival of new, slim suits, which puts its roughly a decade behind the reigning wisdom emanating from men’s fashion runways.

Men’s Wearhouse, by contrast, in its newer digs on 45th, has the look of a hip family steakhouse. It is lit by Edison bulbs, and filled with enormous wood drafting tables and weathered, military-style metal shelves. Flat-screen TVs play European soccer matches. Its street-facing window is draped in a patchwork American flag in gray-scale colors, like Old Glory filtered via Instagram. If you want to salute your country while you watch the footballers of another, there is tailoring made in the U.S.A. by Joseph Abboud, who is also Men’s Wearhouse’s chief creative director.

Men’s Wearhouse, with its selection of brands, has the feeling of a crowded party: You will jostle Ralph Lauren, Kenneth Cole and Tommy Hilfiger as you make your way through its racks. At Jos. A. Bank, you will meet Jos. A. Bank. All of the retailer’s collections are its own, though you will ascend to a first-name basis with Mr. Bank if you go for the trim “Joseph Slim” suit.

The Bank store is due for a touch-up. Its walls are a dingy lemon yellow, its carpeted floors a well-trod-grass green. Hangers were broken on its racks and dressing room fixtures still stickered with inspection badges from their factories. A sign posted in its doorway that restrooms are for customer use only doesn’t telegraph elegance, necessary though it may be.

Even so, Jos. A. Bank has more to recommend it than first glance may indicate. Its sales staff (like that at Men’s Wearhouse) is friendlier and more accommodating than most in more fashion-forward stores. Said reporter was clocked, measured and offered a few suits for a summer wedding within minutes, and told honestly that for shirts, given his unusual measurements, his best options would be found elsewhere.

And the suits? One, in pinstriped navy wool and silk, was smart, if a little loud; a second, in micro-check gray wool, perfectly acceptable. At $995, the wool-and-silk option was on the high end of the store’s spectrum, but aggressive promotions and discounting is the Bank model. The suit was offered as part of three-for-the-price-of-one deal; buy it alone, a game salesman named Mike Marcou said, and it would be 65 percent off the ticketed price. It was not end-of-season merchandise, Black Friday or even Lincoln’s Birthday. It is merely a sale, which, Mr. Marcou said, happens “every so often.”

Reporter and suit ended up parting ways. There was no summer wedding, and what’s more, the quality could give a man pause. (Made in the U.S.A. is no inherent guarantee of quality, but unlike Men’s Wearhouse, Jos. A. Bank doesn’t boast of its wares’ provenance; labels from various pieces showed them to be made in India, in Mexico, in Guatemala and in Sri Lanka, among other countries.) But for $348.25, it can be genuinely called a deal.

The older, more traditional Bank is not Wearhouse; the younger, bolder Wearhouse is not Bank. Analysts say the changes will likely begin at the back end of the business, with improved margins and efficiencies. If it came with a coat of paint and a spit-shine for Bank, all to the good.

And in the meantime, peace has settled once again over Madison Avenue between 45th and 46th.

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section E, Page 4 of the New York edition with the headline: What Does $1.8 Billion Get You in Men’s Wear?. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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